The recent disasters of this year could be turned into a song, a poem, a newscast, and they have been in name and number rolling off the tongues of reporters and residents since the Boston Marathon bombing and its after -effects.

There were the terrible fires in California with the extremely dry conditions there; there was the wayward officer who had parts of California on edge for days, and now nature has taken over yet again.

Well, I have one thing to say to the celebrities of our nation: GET UP AND START DOING YOUR PART NOW! What do I mean exactly? It is this: the hard -working people of these cities and towns have paid good money to see your shows and your movies, millions of dollars paid in to see these events. Your kids then can go to posh and super -uber private schools, be dressed in expensive clothes and shoes by nannies and supervised in the breakfast room by British butlers. Now your kids can have the very best, so shouldn’t the people who have supported your elaborate lifestyles expect something from you?

I do not mean putting on the music shows for the benefit of you getting some photo opportunity or your name in the paparazzi press and top headlines in the magazines. Why not just get out there and contribute by putting in some elbow grease and telling the camera people and your agents to leave the celebrity stuff behind for once. Act like the ordinary citizens you really are anyway, and put on the cleanup gear. Get out the leather gloves and the jeans, the heavy boots and the hats, the plain shirts and the water bottles and the sack lunches and get alongside those who are right now searching the rubble of Moore, Cleburne, and Granbury and other parts of Texas, Oklahoma, and maybe now even parts of Arkansas, Kansas, and Tennessee. Severe weather also moved through Illinois and Missouri and Iowa.

So you celebrities and American royalty who are not making your presence known, go ahead and take the chance. Put aside the glitz, bling, glimmer and shine of the stage, the fancy clothes, the designer gowns and the lights and the pricey jewelry. Get right alongside the folks who have supported your careers by buying the magazines, the CDs, the DVDs, the music videos, the ring tones and the designer lines of sheets, clothes, shoes and furnishings for the home and office.

Get in there! Get into the soup kitchens and make cauldrons of soup, pans of bread, saucepans of vegetables, sandwiches for the first responders, and bowls of Jello and pudding for the kids. Go into the hospitals and help the chaplains; go in and pray for the survivors, and go to the bedsides of the children to bring them stuffed animals, books, art supplies or other toys.

The people are out there and you should be too if you have the time and energy. Bring your hands out there; there are people who need all the help the nation can give right now. There are lives to rebuild, homes to reconstruct, communities to bring back to life, wounds to heal and lives to reconnect.

In the Northern Hemisphere we can see some stunning celestial objects; we can witness meteor showers and fantastic bolides and we can see rings around the sun and moon, which are caused by light reflecting from cirrus clouds (made of ice crystals). We can see planets, stars, and arms of our home galaxy; depending on our lighting and pollution conditions we can see dim stars, star colors, the Milky Way and the nearest galaxy to our own, Andromeda.

As children if we are fortunate we have telescopes and excellent binoculars with which to see the rings of Saturn, the moons of Jupiter, the features on our Moon, and with proper filter protection, solar prominences and sunspots. We can pick out some of the better known constellations and asterisms, such as Orion and the Summer Triangle.

However, many of the sights people can witness in the celestial realm are seen only in the Southern Hemisphere. Certain supernovae for instance have been seen only from that part of the Earth, and some of the best dark skies in the world are in that hemisphere.

Wouldn’t it be great if the nations of the Southern Hemisphere engaged in eco-friendly peacetime deals and stopped their wars based on religion and grabbing power, in tearing down the forests and destroying the land? There is so much to marvel at and ponder if only the people of Indonesia, India, Africa and South America would lay down their weapons and quell their anger and just take time to gaze into the skies on clear nights.

What would they see? They certainly would see sights on a grand scale, such as we can see here if we are lucky.

Americans are learning the benefits of having regions devoted to dark-sky observation, freed from development and away from the lights of big cities and industry. We know that reducing the amount of artificial light that enters our windows at night is beneficial for our health, but we still need street lights that are designed and efficient enough to direct light down instead of up and out. Better lighting would reduce greatly the amount of that awful “light pollution” that clouds the skies even dozens of miles away from cities.

Thus in areas with fewer cities and developments, such as are seen in some parts of the Southern Hemisphere, just think of the benefits the peoples could draw in by catering to people who want to see wonderful dark-sky conditions. Eco-tourism is growing in popularity, and there would be nothing better for some overworked city dweller to come to a quiet, dark, calm place, and get out there under the sparkling show of a velvety black panorama.

There would be globular clusters, galaxies, planets, stars, meteor showers, the spiral arms of our Milky Way; there would be constellations and comets to grace the eyes and the brains of astute viewers. What a place to hold a Messier Marathon an area such as India, Micronesia, Australia, Indonesia, and Easter Island would be!

What else would the peoples of the Southern Hemisphere see? Branch out for a moment from talk of the skies and the planets and think about what they would see in others and in themselves. They would see other human beings just as they are, they would see families and young children yearning for a chance to have peace and quiet and grow up in a place free from constant noise and lights for security and weapons discharging and waste ruining the streets and the atmosphere. They would see people yearning for freedom to enjoy nights in the countryside with their relatives; they would see people wanting time on their front porches to watch the meteors or watch the progression of the planets as their ancestors did centuries ago.

They would see more than a resource for bringing in serious bucks and for preserving their natural environments; they would see each other.

Galaxies in our own right are we humans; with so many parts but within each individual, within each person there are opportunities, there are chances and there is potential. We are stardust each one of us; we are made of the universal elements born in supernovae. Our common beginning is up there and around us, in the cosmos, in the evolving universe, and in the stars our destiny is happening every second.

We can take notice of each other and with clear heads we can look up and help others do the same. Take the time, turn off the lights, go outside, be quiet, relax and breathe, and just look up.

Christmas – we can look at this holiday in a couple of ways; the secular, materialistic way that has become so prevalent and it seems so relevant in today’s American society, or on the path of which Christmas is based by its very spelling. The word Christ is very powerful, the basis of the Christian religion and the head of all who follow those principles. We misuse the name of Christ many times without giving it much thought, and we misuse the meaning of the holiday (really, holy day) when we go off the mark of what it really means.To some the “holidays”, from Thanksgiving to Christmas, seem to herald the time of breaking out the sales circulars, the decorations, the ads at the grocery stores, department stores, big box stores, any kind of commercial exchange venue.

We want to imitate the first bearers of the gifts that were given to the baby Jesus (later that head of all Christians), the wise men/ magi/ kings who made an amazing journey to see that young child who would be king. But we go to excess in the way we struggle to find “the right thing”, or get just the right wrapping paper, or find the right card, or be seen at the right store at just the time of day when “all our friends” will be there and know we are showing off our status and our wish to pick over the shelves to get that item before anyone else does… even to the point of losing friends.Let us take a closer look at that special event in history, an event that is painted, talked about, re-enacted every year as it has been for centuries in Christmas stories all over the world. There is more to this story than meets the eye of the artist, the bard, or the poet. In this is something for everyone.

THE GIFTS OF THE MAGI

The journey of these three wise men, sage kings as recorded in the many works about them, began perhaps two years earlier. According to them, a star was seen in the east and they followed it in order to worship him whom it symbolized. In the Book of Matthew, in chapter 2, the details are brief but enough to give us knowledge that something special had happened and those men had set out to find out exactly what was going on. In the lore, the star meant that someone of importance, a governor, a king, had been born, and they were come to worship. They gathered their provisions and personnel and set out.

The paintings record this small group as a diverse gathering of rulers, with the time and wealth to make such a journey. Their lands must have been at peace in order for them to leave those lands and make their way to Jerusalem in order to recognize another king, and a baby at that, but then rulers in the Bible were very young times, and there is a fine painting of a maharajah, part of the exhibit at the Field Museum, when Raj Singh was only eleven. No matter who they were or what they looked like, theirs was a common mission and their goal was to find the new king. Through obstacles, harsh conditions, and maybe with some doubt in their minds, they made the journey and found the Child.

What they followed has been described many ways, as a comet, a conjunction, a supernova, and maybe even by some as a gamma ray burst (now that would really have been something to see the light of, as they are extremely energetic and that energy must travel billions of light years). For a light to last two years the event would have to be a very powerful burst of light indeed. Whatever it was, the kings followed it diligently until they came to the place over which the star paused and the light shone upon it. At that time, with reverence and dignity, the kings, surely tired from their travels, presented their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, no doubt in containers as precious as their contents.

Gold of course is well -known in its symbolism, for its purity, brilliance, endurance and many uses. It probably was the element used in the containers for all the gifts. Frankincense is a precious, fragrant gum resin from a tree known for its healing purposes and use in rituals. Myrrh is an oleoresin, an expensive spice, with uses in perfume, used also in preparation for burials in the times of Jesus. The benefits of all three of these gifts were well known, for medicinal and healing properties, to reduce swelling and inflammation and the like. Either these kings already knew of the benefits of these gifts or they were very well advised by their courtiers as to what might be suitable for gifts. They listened to the right people, and now their intelligence is rooted in history.

c. 1432-1436 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What they carried with them was wisdom. They prepared carefully for that long journey. Being kings they were surely greatly guarded and appointed as kings should be. They were true to the traditions of their ancestors and their sages, who studied deeply the ancient texts to ascertain this event. They prepared carefully for this event by gathering the facts, preparing provisions, making sure the quality of their gifts, making ready their travling parties, and their animals, and setting out. Being such a long journey they had to be careful in their way so that they would make it safely and carry out their mission.Now perhaps you could see a king dressed in the manner they are accustomed to when in their native lands, maybe in dark, rich, jeweled robes and turbans and golden headdresses, maybe in garments wrapped around and fastened with brooches and pins fine with jewels and metals, maybe a combination of these regalia. But these would not be practical for a long, dusty, difficult journey over hills, deserts, river passes and mountains. And not wanting to attract too much of the wrong attention, they probably dressed rather plainly, with nothing overly glittering or heavy to burden them or their beasts of burden.

Wearing a crown means something special. A crown is a symbol of great authority, worn only by a select few in positions of amazing and incredible power. Crowns are made so that the wearer stands out; the turban ornaments worn by the maharajahs of India were meant to do the same thing, sparkle and move and shimmer so that the wearer would be known for his authority and the right to mete out power, delegation, and dicates. In the ancient lore of some religious traditions, the crown chakra is where the higher powers of the intellect reside and from which these powers spring to light the world and all who know the bearers of these faculties, brilliant facets, and wondrous principles of learning and achievement.

One of these kings may well have been from the region of the world we now know as India, but the point is that three powerful men came together for this wondrous journey to find another king and give him adoration and royal presents, the best they had to offer. Paintings show them in deep and humble admiration of the newborn king as he is held or is in the manger in the presence of his parents, Mary and Joseph, as they open their gifts. The area must have been filled with sparkle and light, and with a fragrance almost overwhemling, as of an Old Testament temple during times of high worship on special occasions.

It is truly a great moment in world history, something everyone can appreciate for the qualities that go way beyond the event itself.

English: Adoration of the Wise Men by Murillo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Listening to the news this morning, sounding all blase’ and secular and people-touting, I shook my head at such phrases similar to, “We’re trying to burn off this fog.” “We’re burning off this fog.” Well now, it is high time the media folks started putting such talk aside and out and over for good.

Thunderstorm (Photo credit: m.prinke)

Might as well come to terms with it, media people. We might blame the weather for this or that, but a lot of what goes on is natural and not of our doing or anything we can control. Talk of global warming aside, Earth has seen many cycles of warming and freezing, spurts of human activity and changes in where industrialization and collections of people happen through the centuries. Our position in the Milky Way galaxy changes as well, so there are varying amounts of dust and light and gas that are factors too.

Certainly we do not “burn off the fog”, “drive the snow out”, or “get rid of the rain” any more than we cause the sun to move or the Earth to rotate. Think we can bring the rain?

Coooooooooooooooooooooooooooo-rection!

The Sun, a middle-aged yellow star which is over 100 Earths wide, provides the heat engine to drive the weather. Water vapor, winds, dust in the atmosphere, and air pressure affect that which we have come to know as weather. It happens every day and can be described in dozens if not hundreds of ways. We have sunny days, hot days, drought; we have floods, tornadoes, dust storms and bow-echo thunderstorms that can spread damage over wide swaths of the nation. We study the weather but we cannot bid it to come or go.

We can certainly do our best to take precautions regarding the weather or other natural occurrences. Citizens and officials can try to work together to make living areas safer against floods, fires, tornadoes and winds. We can be careful of where we build, we can control the brush around our homes and keep our parks cleaner, and we can work with those in the sciences to develop materials and building techniques that will at least make an attempt at keeping buildings safer against severe storms.

In Nashville one year I was home in my circa-1917 bungalow, sturdy with a stone foundation and first floor walls, with the storm door tightly shut and bolted, when a severe storm blew in, and wow did it ever blow through! 90 to 100 mile an hour winds whistled through and made that eerie noise one might hear in a hurricane; after all, those are hurricane -force winds. Lightning scorched the skies east of the city for a long time after that.

Now lightning is one of those unpredicatables- who knows where it will strike; though when it does it is about 40,000 degrees and bolts can be an inch wide (maybe they can be more than that?). Who among us knows how big or small hailstones will be until we see and measure them? You can tell there is hail in a storm by the odd greenish-gray coloration seen in the clouds when the storms are coming. A hail -producing storm from the distance has a line of green under the cloud. I noted that phenomena once north of Nashville. Sure enough, as the weather report talked about the storm there was a thin line of greenish-gray under that cloud miles away!

So you weather people can “try as hard as we can to burn off that dense fog” or “get rid of the rain and let the sun come out” but wouldn’t it be best just to stick to plain talk and give the weather forecast and conditions as you see them and let go the small talk? Put aside the “we are trying hard to get rid of the fog” bit and just be plain and logical in your talks- no blame, none of the human factor, just the facts straight up and tell people what the conditions are. Make the scientific part of it fun and challenging too, for people who want to know the meteorology facts and stats, rather as the forecasters on WGN in Chicago do.

Weather can be fun and challenging to study, as anything natural or in the universe can be, with the remembrance that we did not create it and all in all we do not influence it. Nature is ours to enjoy and take care of to the best of our abilities.

What can you do to keep your environment clean, fresh, enjoyable and wonderful? As you study it, think about it.

We in the dust bowl listen Listen for the patter of nourishing rain;
We look to the skies for those gray-black lines Heralding the approach of precipitation again.
The rolling thunder we await; The darkening and humid veils of moisture To give relief to the farmers again.
In this monotonous lack of rain, In the days of partly cloudy, mostly sunny and “A chance of rain”…

We look to those skies for that precious water
To bring us, parched in mind, arid in spirit,
We who look day by day
Skyward at the slightest mention of rain,
We who hope for rain Pray it shall come soon.

The forecasters say we really need
Nine to fifteen inches just to bring
Even the slightest relief to the drought.
What extra must we have For the crops to prosper?
Is there even a chance for any of the farms to green again?
Is there a chance for so great an amount of rain?